Frozen
by littlesilvercat
Summary: A Small Fic on Kim's Granddaughter and Edward.
1. Time

I looked up at the house. It was cold, and it was snowing. 

Swirling snow tumbled down, dancing and weaving amongst themselves. Billowing clouds of snowflakes everywhere, and the entire view was white, white and grey.

A snowflake landed on my bare skin and melted into a small droplet of water.

The exposed fingers that held the envelope trembled and I gripped it harder. 

I entered the grounds slowly, hearing each footstep crunch loudly as I went on. I had to go on. I had promised.

It had snowed at my grandmother's funeral; frosting the roses I had placed on her coffin. They were red ones, and I had focused on them all the time the priest was talking, barely aware of him other than his monotonous voice in the distance. Slowly the flakes had landed on them and made them brittle, icy, cold crystalline shapes, instead of the soft velvet red that they had been.

She had given me three envelopes, one to read… and one to take _up there _and one to read after doing that. They were ordinary envelopes, white, like the kind you find in any stationary store. On the front she had written the addresses in a red pen, even though they would never be sent.

My stomach churned. I couldn't really believe she was gone. It was like she could still be around, she would still come visit, but she wasn't ever going to do that anymore.

We'd grown apart, and now she was gone for good, I was being attacked by sharp pangs of regret.

When I was younger we talked more, but when I had grown older I had alienated her. I hadn't wanted to explain the details of my life to someone who wouldn't understand. It hadn't really crossed my mind that she was my age once.

It had surprised me when she gave me the envelopes. I had never really thought about Edward as a real person, but going back, I remember looking into her faded eyes, and she had not been lying.

It was easier when I was younger. I didn't have to think of the truth, I could just accept it. It was true, and that was all the facts of it.

Swirling snow. I pulled my coat tighter around me and stepped into the courtyard.

It was filled with weird shapes, and suddenly I was scared. The idea of meeting him in the person scared me.

All around me were fantastical shapes, each suddenly menacing and macabre, but dead. Dead with snow on them. The dark green of the topiary contrasted with the white that was upon them, smothering them.

The path wasn't overgrown, it was cut neatly, which seemed even more sinister, the pallid grass all the same height, carefully done and lovingly looked-after. 

I nestled my chin in the warmth of the dark blue scarf, feeling numb and wishing I was with my boyfriend Dan, or anywhere but here in this sparkling frozen world. 

I looked back, my footsteps already filling with more snow, and I started up the steps.

My Grandmother had left for university after the final semester was over. She fell in love while she was there, and remained in the state until 20 years later, when my Grandfather, Eric died. After that she moved back here, gazing up at the forbidden building.

The steps ended and I was at the door. I froze and looked back again. White snow had settled on the town below and it looked quiet, inaudible. Like a big blanket, settled over everything.

I knocked the door, but there was no answer. It was quiet, and I breathed in and opened the door.

It opened silently, not like a squeaking door you would expect in this kind of place, or in a horror movie.

"Hello?"

My voice echoed around the room, and I couldn't hide the quaver in it. 

"Edward?"

I started towards the machinery, when I heard a voice on the stair.

"Kim?"

I looked around and saw him. I gasped, my breathing turning raspy and my heart beating faster.

He existed.

He came down the dark staircase and stopped only a few metres away from me. He looked like I had been told, and I was shocked.

His face seemed to be a single network of scars, and yet it was so pale. His eyes were dark, but he didn't seem frightening. Not until you looked at his hands.

I shook my head.

He took a step back, his face making a strange expression and I realised in a bizarre moment that he was afraid of me. I didn't understand how. He was a tall man, dressed entirely in a black kind of leather, and he had sharp blades. I was small and totally unarmed.

"You don't have to be frightened," I said, trying to hide my own fright.

He took several steps forward and looked at me in the pale light.

"Where's Kim?" He said softly, and I realised he was unused to talking to people. "Do you know her?" His distorted face was animated yet dark, understanding.

I looked at the grey stone floor.

"She asked me to give you this." I held out the envelope but he couldn't take it. I held it there while he snipped off the top of the envelope and I removed the object inside and held it up for him to see.

It was a necklace, small and golden, with a single heart shape in the centre.

He looked at it, and all the hope on his face left him.

"She wouldn't come?" He said, in a mixture of puzzlement and despair.

"She couldn't come." I said, unable to hide the trembling in my voice. I looked at the door behind Edward.

"Can you help me?" He said, looking at the necklace and changing the subject.

"Of course."

"Thank you."

I fastened the tiny clip around his neck, feeling uncomfortably close to him, and looked at it where it hung, a gold heart against the black.

He looked at me again, and I realised that behind the horrible mask there was a person, and that person was in pain.

Inside his eyes there was a depth I hadn't seen before. It wasn't filled with anger, nor threats, not even sadness at being alone for so long, but with resignation.

He accepted that it was dangerous for her to come here again; he acknowledged that they could never be together, but still he loved.

How long was he going to remain here for? Her time was over, but it was like he was frozen in time. He didn't have a time he could belong to. What was it I read? 'It is better to burn out than to fade away?' Maybe it was true.

This wasn't something you learned about at school. This wasn't something you could be told. I just knew, and I hurt for my Grandmother.

A song ran through my head and I tried to ignore it. _'How long must you wait for me?'_

A headache started pulsing a constant rhythm._ 'How long must you pay for me?'_

I looked up at the man. He seemed older now.

"I didn't mean to intrude"

"You haven't."

_'How long must you wait for me? Forever?' _

I looked in his eyes. They were almost black and surrounding them was a deep region of purple. A long scar went barely a few millimetres from the corner of one of his eyes but he still might have been handsome once.

His body was tall and thin but he stood awkwardly, scissors downwards, snipping nervously occasionally.

_'I was scared, I was scared.'_ I frowned. Edward snipped again, and I realised I was still anxious. I could hear my heart, playing a fast additional drumbeat to the music in my head.

_'Tired and under prepared' _There was a silence.

"I'm Laura." I said

"Edward."

_'But I'll wait for you'_

"I should go."

"Please stay."

He spoke quickly, shortly, with an almost childlike tone. He still seemed younger, more awkward than me even though he was decades older.

"How do you know Kim?" He said all in one go, not looking at me.

I paused for a moment. _'If you go, if you go.' _

"She's a relative."

I looked around at the hall. There were dusty machines and metal everywhere. Books littered shelves and light filtered in through small windows.

"You're all alone here?" I asked, even though I knew the answer.

He nodded.

"Will you show me around?"

He nodded again

"Thank y-"

"You're welcome." He said and I followed him down the hall.

_'Don't leave me down here on my own'_

He went up some stairs and I was in a large room. Washed-out light and spiralling snow came in through a hole in the ceiling, which was half-collapsed. It looked like it could fall at any second. On one side of the room there was a bed, and newspaper and magazine clippings on the wall.

In the centre were ice sculptures. Beautiful art, like the kind you see at weddings, but bigger, more vivid, real. So real, but so still and frozen.

"You made these?" I said before realised how pointless the question was. "They're beautiful."

"Thank you." He said, and I thought I saw him smile fleetingly before he turned his head into the shadows.

I pulled the dark green raincoat I was wearing closer to me. His life seemed so cold, bleak, frozen. He stayed here, waiting for someone who was gone, but I could go. I could go have fun, I could go and fall in love, live in the sunshine.

_'And I'll wait for you'_ I tried to remember where I had heard it but it refused to come to me.

"Do you want to see the rest?" 

"Yes." I said, swallowing.

_'How long must you wait for me?'_

I put my hand on one of the statues, subconsciously checking it was real, and it was._ 'How long must you pay for me?' _I looked at my hand. Pearly drops of ice had melted on it, like tears.

I followed Edward's quick walk down the stairs and across the hall. Two pairs of footsteps pattering across the stone floor. 

He paused outside a room, and then leant against the door. It didn't open.

"Can you…?"

I turned the door handle and it opened.

"This is his study." 

There were books everywhere, moulding paper littered the floor and diagrams were pinned to the walls. I walked past Edward and over to the desk and opened a thick book. It was about Edward. It showed how he had been created, and how he would he would be when he was finished. I didn't understand that Edward was just a creation. Did that mean he wasn't a person who could think, or feel? How could he love so deeply?

I dropped the book where it made a mushroom cloud of dust. Edward flinched and there was a line of red across his face. 

"I'm really sorry." I said, aghast and walked towards him. He held his scissors in front of his face, not as a threat, but as a place to hide. 'If you cut us... will we not bleed?' I thought stupidly.

"Are you okay?"

He gaunt face showed nothing, but he nodded.

"Yes. Thank you."

He went out the room and I followed.

The hallway continued to a pair of dark doors. 

"His rooms." He said, quietly, already moving onwards, further into the dark house.

"Uh.. Edward?" I said, my nerve breaking

He stopped and looked at me. 

"I have to go." 

His look again was one of acceptance; he knew that I would probably never return, or that he would never see Kim again, even though he didn't know she was dead.

"Goodbye."

I had already started walking.

"Goodbye Edward." I said softly, but I know he didn't hear me.

Outside the house it was snowing more furiously than ever. I thought I saw him at one of the cracked glass windows, but then it was gone, and I stumbled onwards through the snow.

Tears went down my face. I had abandoned this man, this man with no friends in the world, just like I had ignored my grandmother. I hated them, I hated myself.

She was dead, Edward was worse; he was frozen. 

_'How long must you wait for me? Forever?'_

I reached the end of the path, and I didn't look back again.

_'Singing please, please, please, come back and sing to me,_

_To me, come on and sing it out, now, now_

_Come on and sing it out to me, me…_

_Come back and sing it…'_

I felt naïve. I felt like my heart was crying too, and I felt like a wretched fool.

_'In my place,_

_In my place_

_Were lies that I couldn't change_

_I was lost, oh yeah…'_

In my pocket there was an envelope with red writing, creeping over it like a scarlet spider's web.

I walked on, and out.


	2. Heart

A/N: 

First, a disclaimer: Kim and Edward do not belong to me.

Secondly, thank you to my (all too few) reviewers. 

Leap of Fate: Sorry. The song was 'In my place', by Coldplay. The lyrics may actually be slightly different but it's mainly right. Dreary Music Forever!

Thirdly: If you have any concerns about Edward's character, (if he's too weird.. whatever) or anything else that I've mentioned you only have to tell me and, unless they are intentional, can easily be changed.

Fourthly: This isn't a Mary-sue. If you think it has any vague leaning towards Mary-sue-dom (Or not so Vague, god help me) contact me.

From the wheel of my parents' four-wheel drive I looked up at the house. On the seat next to me there was a huge pile of magazines. There were magazines from my Dad, fishing and National Geographic mainly, but occasionally a few current affairs, then there was my sister who was going through a particularly girly phase in her adolescence, and my Mom who read cheap tabloids with sensational (yet untruthful) stories in them. 

It was two weeks since I had gone up to the house, and for some reason my conscience would not let go. Every time I heard any song by Coldplay I was reminded of the snow. Every time I needed to use scissors, I remembered. Even when I was with Dan I had a persisting feeling that I still had something to do, some score left to settle.

Now, had to be the worst time to develop a conscience. My grades had been slipping and I had huge amounts of work to do, or else there was no way I would graduate with the right grades. 

I can never honestly say that I buried myself in my work to avoid life's troubles. It doesn't work like that with me. I work when I have to, and I did have to. Swamped with this much and Edward went a long way out of my mind, somewhere beyond advanced Math. 

Now I was wishing I had taken Dan's offer of a day-trip to the Capital city. 

He had left this morning, with his friends, and my best friend, Mel, who was currently dating one of them. I was surprised they all fitted in his car to be honest. I suppose some seat sharing was going on.

I looked around the street, checking to see if anyone was around, and pulled up the driveway. I parked the car, putting on the handbrake. I sighed.

The courtyard looked totally different near the snow had melted. It was still eerie, and I had forgotten the bizarre shapes, but now they were creatures, not objects. I didn't know whether this was an improvement, but it was… something.

Carrying a pile of magazines I made my way to the door, but by the time I had reached the third step it was open.

"You came back?" It was a dampened statement rather then a question, and I didn't answer it. His face was smiling awkwardly in disbelief and it was a strange sight. I hadn't seen him smile properly before. He looked totally different.

"I brought you some magazines."

"Thank you." He said in his low, quiet voice, looking what I took to be shy and snipping his blades nervously.

I reached the final step.

"Where do you want me to put them?" I looked up at him, then looked down again so I could keep my eyes on the blades.

"I'll take them." He held out his forearms while I moved to side to avoid the scissors, and I put them on him. He looked at me.

"Er… I have some more… I'll just go get them." I started blushing. Why was I blushing?

Once I had got the magazines, hesitated, then returned to the house I followed him up to the room where he stayed, the one that was half-collapsed. I put down the magazines on the floor and moved over to the slanting hole in the roof. 

From here I could see a long way. It faced away from the horrid suburbia and towards the ocean. Green trees flecked grassland and houses. In the distance was the sea, blue and barely visible. It had to be at least 70 kilometres away.

Even though it wasn't snowing it was still cold. Edward probably didn't even feel it anymore.

"Why did you come back?"

I had a sinking feeling. I couldn't tell him that I needed to explain about his long lost love, now permanantly lost. But I couldn't really explain that I hated seeing anyone this separated from the world. Hell, I couldn't even explain it to myself.

"I don't know." I said lamely. "I thought you were lonely…" My voice trailed off, and I mentally grimaced.

"You're very kind." He stated

I felt bad. After I had come here last time, I cried. Now, I felt equally bad, but not in the same way. It was the unfairness, the resignation that he had, and that he was still waiting. I tried to pull myself together. I'm not this pathetic, normally, but then this wasn't really normal.

I felt sick. He saw the look on my face, and turned even paler.

"What's wrong?" He asked, panicking, his face like a mime's.

I hated myself, but I managed to smile. "I'm okay. Just tired, I guess."

He gave a small worried smile, and shuffled towards the corner where the magazines were.

I unfolded a small piece of paper from my pocket. It was creased from where I'd folded it and from the numerous times that even in two weeks I had looked at it. I knew the red words almost off by heart, but it was comforting to read it.

_Laura,_

_I know you have done as I asked. You're a good girl._

_I suppose you believe me now? _

_In a perfect world, none of this would have happened. We could both have been happy. It's too late for me now, and too late for him. There is no way to rewind these things, and even if we could I could never go up there. Only in a perfect world. _

_I thought that the world had the problem, but it doesn't; we do. People are unfair, people are cruel, people are imperfect._

_I can't escape from that, and he can't hide. There is no place for us. _

_I was young once. That's all behind me. You have it all in front of you._

_Don't do anything you'll regret._

_I love you forever._

_Your Grandmother, Kim_

It's not the best written of letters but it made me think. Sometimes things aren't perfect. Stories don't just end, and nothing really goes the way it's supposed to. I realised that.

I miss her so much, but I wonder if I even knew her. I can't imagine staying here, like Edward, until my memory slowly fades, and all I have left is what I'm holding on to.

I glanced up from the page, and saw Edward looking at me. He didn't ask what I was reading.

Putting it back in my pocket, and sat on the floor opposite Edward, who was looking at one of Adele's magazines. I was disgusted to notice that part of me was annoyed because the dust would get my jeans dirty.

He was on his knees, the magazine on the floor, and flipped a page carefully with the blunt side of one of his scissors. He looked like a child really. The expression on his pale, dark face was innocent, haunting almost. Yet this same person had killed someone in the anger, passion and burning love of one moment, over fourty years ago.

Did he even know so many years had passed? Did he even understand?

He carefully cut out a picture of a model wearing winter fashions. For not the first time the silence was awkward.

I pulled out my purse and removed a picture.

"This is my family."

He leant forward and studied the picture in the weak light.

"That's my Mom, Adele, My Father, and me."

His expression was unreadable. His eyes were so dark they seemed the same shade throughout, and stained beneath them, like tears, was a tired purple. 

I felt a surge of anger at the inventor, playing god. This wasn't a creation anymore; this was a person. Unable to touch, unable to be loved anymore, shunned by everyone, unable to _die_. I never realised before that dying might be a good thing.

"Will you stay with me for a while?" He asked.

I nodded. The unpleasant atmosphere was gone; I understood.

It was cold, but I stayed there for hours, until it was dark. The silence was enough.


	3. World

It was strange. From then on, there was almost a kind of friendship between the two of us. Just something, like I could catch a glimpse of his world, and he would listen about mine as I described school, my family, Dan, everything to him. The little things, the things you think don't even matter but really make up your life.

Sometimes he asked questions, but mostly he just sat there listening, or awkwardly going through the magazines I brought him. 

The wall had turned into a bright collage of pictures. I wanted to bring a photograph of Kim to him, but was too cowardly to even approach the subject. I didn't know what happen if I told him. Maybe the ice would shatter and he would wake up into the horrible reality, and his hope would dissapear for good. He's not happy, he can't be; but that doesn't mean that the truth can't be worse.

Sometimes he seems childlike, naïve and I can think I can understand him, but then at other times he is ageless, wise, silent and I realise don't know anything about him. I am still a stranger. Sometimes it's because of him, and sometimes it's because of me.

Every now and then I would go to the town's graveyard and wander through the rows of neat graves, wondering what I would say to her, if only she were here. 

All the graves were made of stone. At the back were the worn, faded rocks, and at the front, the newly turned ones, with flowers heaped upon them. When you got further back there were no flowers. Some had skeletal remains of brown plants but almost none had a sign that someone cared.

What must it be like, to only be remembered by a weathering stone? What will happen when their names fade off it completely? A single grey slab is their tribute, and no one even cares.

My Grandmother's grave is close to the front. It reads simply: 

_Kim Graham, Devoted Wife, Mother and Grandmother, 1943-2003_

She would have been sixty, but she never reached her birthday.

Fifty-nine was too young. Only the good die young. She deserved far longer.

The flowers there had already begun decaying; even the Roses, but I laid more down now, this time, violets. 

What did violets mean? Lilies were for funerals, Roses for love, Sunflowers for happiness, If Violets were supposed to signify something, then what did I mean?

I stood there and looked at her grave for a while. Wind whipped through my ears, and I thought about Dan. I wished he was here. Sometimes I hate being alone; I think everyone does. Maybe that's why I felt so bad for Edward, being all alone.

When I got back home I searched for the photographs of my Grandmother when she was my age. They had been stacked in the basement along with most of her things when she had died. I didn't know whether this was for grief, or because they just didn't care anymore. 

The light was old and took seconds to turn on, and even then it only gave out a dull orange glow.

I saw a leather-bound book, blew the dust off, and opened it.

On the first page was a picture of a man and a boy fishing, and I realised it was my great-uncle and great grandfather. Bill had died a long time ago. I think he was in the same cemetry as his daughter, somewhere near the back, along with his wife. Kevin lived thousands of miles away in Washington state with his second wife, Joanne.

He had come back for the funeral, then left straight afterwards.

I looked closer at the picture trying to see their faces clearer, trying to understand them, what they were thinking about in this one faded moment in time. 

I flicked through the pages and smiling faces, then stopped as a double page caught my eye.

On the left hand side was my Grandmother at her Junior Prom. She looked beautiful, but more than that she looked happy. She wasn't alone either, Jim, the man Edward had killed, was with her.

Oh, I had heard the story; I knew that Edward wasn't really to blame, but it still made me slightly uneasy. I also half-wished that Edward had died too. Kim would have broken her heart, but surely that was better than the constant waiting. At least she would know, rather than believe.

The picture on the adjacent page was her Senior Prom. She wore a simple white dress, and although she was smiling I could tell she wasn't happy. Older and wiser. Her face was almost turned away from the camera, and her eyes were looking at something in the distance. I looked at the picture closely, and wondered what it would have been like to have been there. It was so long ago, but still it remained the same.

I looked at the other things here, and opened another book. This one wasn't as dusty. It was nicely made, and nicely looked after. I had seen my Grandmother looking at it before, but I had never asked.

I realised, as I saw the first page, that it wasn't a photo album, it was a scrapbook.

Pictures of Edward, newspaper articles, photos of green topiary, a few dried leaves, a simple heart necklace, paperchains, even a few scraps of clothing filled the pages. Right at the front, in pride of place, was a picture of the two of them together. 

I sighed, and closed the book, putting it on the floor next to me.

Beneath where the scrapbook had been there was a box. I opened it, hoping my Grandmother wouldn't mind me intruding. She made me intrude by sending me up there in the first place, I reasoned towards my conscience.

Inside was a dress, white, but not the one she wore at her prom. One of the straps was broken and stained with blood. I brushed my fingers over the soft material, then picked it up. Beneath lay a scissorhand, the one she had found in the house.

Was I the only one who knew? I felt a slight pang of loneliness. Everyone else had forgotten Edward. No one had passed the story on.

Truth had become an urban myth, until finally, now, it was forgotten.

I picked it up, and found it was surprisingly light. I held it there, running my finger over the gleaming blade. 

A scarlet drop of blood appeared and an acute pain split my finger. I hadn't realised it was still sharp.

Hurridly I put the things back where I had found them and went upstairs.

"Hi Laura." Said my Mom, sounding vague and sitting at the table going through another of her cheap magazines. She lifted her reading glasses and frowned. "Have you cut your hand?"

"Just a scratch." 

I washed my finger under the tap, then splashed my face with water. It had been surprisingly warm in the cellar. 

"Are you okay? Your face is all flushed."

"Fine. I think I'll just go out and get some fresh air…"

"Are you planning on taking the car?" She frowned again

"No, I'll walk"

Before she said anything else I grabbed a coat, and walked outside in the direction of the hill.

A/N:

Thank you, to everyone that has reviewed! It cheered me up loads because my relatives from hell are currently staying (Why am I related to them? Why?) 

Song lyrics don't really fit in, I know, but I'm still not sure if I'm going to change it yet.

I'm going away to Ireland very soon, so therefore I'm not going to be posting the next chapter for at least a week. Hey, maybe I will be inspired to write better things… who knows? 

(Don't stop reviewing…)

Thanks, again.

Disclaimer: Kim, Edward, Jim and everything to do with the film 'Edward Scissorhands' does not belong, or have any connection to me.


End file.
